Full-size performance SUV here by Christmas with a £70k price tag

Geneva? Who needs it? Audi didn’t bother with a motor show to unveil its new SQ7 – it just stayed at home.

On sale in the UK by the end of this year, the performance SUV was launched at Audi HQ in Ingolstadt. It has what the company says is its most advanced chassis ever, thanks to a new electro-mechanical roll stabilisation system.

This uses electric motors running off a 48-volt circuit which operates alongside the standard 12-volt system. In addition to the anti-roll set-up, the 48-volt side also operates an electric charge compressor in the engine – a world first in a production car.

This works alongside two conventional turbos to deliver three-way charge-compression for the 4.0-litre V8 diesel engine. Its job is to keep the first turbo primed and ready to deliver full boost with next to no throttle lag.

That all sounds like fun, as does a heady combination of 429bhp and 663lb ft – the latter from a mere 1000rpm. This goes to all four wheels via an eight-speed auto box; the options list will include a torque-vectoring sport differential in the rear axle for owners who want their four-wheel drive with added interest.

Predictably, a 4.8-second 0-62 time sends the SQ7 straight to the top of the Q7 range in terms of performance. With efficiency figures of 38.2mpg and 194g/km, while it’s hardly uber-green by today’s standards the newcomer certainly does its work with a high level of efficiency.

The Q7 is hardly a shrinking violet in standard form, but the SQ7 is only subtly different with little more than its own grille, bumpers and quad exhausts to set it apart. That’s unless you go into a showroom and say ‘that one, please,’ at which point a price of £70,000, plus options, will give the game away.